Ripples
by MadameCissy
Summary: After the death of her brother, Olivia reflects on what family means to her.


**Summary:** The death of her brother leaves Olivia feeling emotional and she reflects on what family means to her

**Disclaimer:** I do not own anything you recognise.

**Timeline**: Set straight after 21x6.

**Pairing:** Rolivia

* * *

_i thought of you  
__hoping that the ripples _  
_would make you notice me_

_ Tommy Ljungberg ~ The Ripples_

She had seen so much death in her career that she had somehow come to believe that she wasn't as affected by it anymore. But to feel such grief for someone whose presence in her life had been so intermittent and had been so full of demons, caught her by surprise. It was as if the wise words and the well trained and very much perfected exterior she wore every day when she faced victims of horrific crimes did not hold up when the sadness, the darkness and the hurt followed her home and crept into her own life. And following her home it had. It had come knocking at her door without warning and she had trusted the good she always wished to see in the world and in just one sweeping moment, it had come in and taken something from her.

Most of the night had gone by in some kind of hazy blur. She and Noah had dinner and he had soon clocked on that he could get away with not eating his broccoli that night without her trying to persuade him to at least try. He'd spent longer in the shower than what was part of his usual bedtime routine and he hopped into bed almost half an hour late and she was pretty sure he hadn't made all that much effort to brush his teeth. She kissed him goodnight and softly closed the bedroom door behind her.

This was usually the time where she would pick up any discarded toys, would rearrange the shoes underneath the coat stand and prepare Noah's lunchbox for the following day. But tonight she stepped over the abandoned NASCAR toy cars that had been engaged in a race around the couch an hour earlier and fell down into the cushions. Her shoulders and neck felt heavy, as if the weight and burden of today's events physically weighed her down.

She wasn't sure if she hadn't heard the knock on the door or if Amanda just hadn't knocked at all. Olivia lifted up her head when she heard the key turn in the lock and moments later the light from the corridor outside briefly illuminated the walls of the entry, casting the blonde Detective's eerie looking shadow along the living room floor. When Amanda entered the living area, her eyes scanned around the room, taking in the scene and quickly sorting through the information it provided.

Dinner was still on the table, she noticed. One plate was missing the potatoes and meat but still had an abundance of broccoli. The other plate looked like food had just been pushed around in various directions without having been touched once. Without waiting for Olivia to say anything, she shrugged herself out of her blazer, draped it over the back of the couch and picked up the plates.

"Amanda, what are you doing?" Olivia turned her head to watch the younger woman scrape the left overs into the trashcan under the sink.

Amanda opened the dish washer, put the plates and the cutlery in it and then turned around. A worried expression flashed across her face. "You told me this afternoon that your brother had died, Liv," she said, the tone of her voice making it very clear that she wasn't expecting Olivia to argue with her. "If I told you my sister had died, you'd be in my apartment doing the dishes too."

"But you and your sister…"

"Have a very different relationship?" Amanda finished the sentence Olivia had started. "Doesn't matter."

She turned back to the kitchen bench, picked up the pots and pans Olivia had used to cook dinner and put them in the dish washer too. She picked up the two glasses, one still half full of juice and the other with just a single mouth full of water, emptied the content down the drain and added them to the dishwasher.

"Where I come from, people cook for you when someone passes away. I am not exactly a great chef and to be honest, I can't think of anything worse than having to try and eat when I feel like shit so I decided to let that go." Amanda turned around, the hint of a twinkle in her eye and a slight grin on her face. "Consider this my version instead."

"Southern hospitality?" Olivia questioned and Amanda shrugged.

"Somethin' like that."

For the next ten, fifteen minutes the two women enjoyed a comfortable silence as Amanda continued to tidy up the kitchen. She switched on the dishwasher, wiped down the surfaces and found the loaf of bread Olivia had grabbed from the bodega around the corner the day before. She made Noah some sandwiches and filled his lunch box with some of the snacks she found in the cupboard and poured water from the jug in the fridge door into his Spiderman bottle. Satisfied that she had done what she felt she needed to do, Amanda walked into the living area, expertly avoiding the NASCAR cars whilst making a note to put them back in the toy box later. She sat down next to Olivia on the couch.

"I can't stop thinking…" Olivia began but then her voice drifted off.

Amanda looked at Olivia. She could see the dark features on her face, the grey circles underneath her eyes. The face of a woman who was trying to fit the pieces together but couldn't get the picture to complete. "Can't stop thinking about what?"

"It had been, what, seven years?" Olivia sighed.

"I think almost eight," Amanda quietly added.

"Eight years and he runs in to me on the corner of the street four blocks from here?" The corners of Olivia's mouth curled up into a distant smile. "I'm a firm believer of fate and all but New York is a really big city. Five minutes earlier or later and we would've missed each other completely."

Amanda frowned. "What are you thinking?"

Olivia ran her fingers through her hair and leaned back. Confusion flickered in her eyes. "I don't know," she sighed. "I don't know what I'm thinking." She shook her head. "He seemed to have his life together, seemed to be doing better. He had a job, he'd moved back to Jersey. I know he said he hadn't seen his kids since the last we saw each other. But when I saw him, the first thing I felt was…"

"Hesitation?" Amanda tried and Olivia nodded.

"Yeah. I mean, I couldn't just be happy about seeing my brother." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Have I just become too cynical?"

"Liv, you and Simon went through a lot and no doubt I don't even know half the story," Amanda interjected. She put a hand on her Captain's thigh. An intimate touch that she didn't even think twice about. "When he walked into your life several years ago, I saw what that did to you. And I didn't know you then. But I saw the way Cragen reacted. I saw how everyone else reacted. I sensed the worry and I knew, even back then, that your brother meant bad news." She paused, contemplating for a moment if her words had been too harsh. "I'm just sorry that you never got to experience knowing him without that feeling."

"Me too," Olivia whispered. She turned her head to look at Amanda. "He hadn't been a part of my life for so long and when I first found out he existed, I was obsessed. But then he became this thing, this person, that only ever brought trouble for me and I just never got to a point where I would feel OK about seeing him."

Amanda studied the older woman's face as a wave of emotions flashed across Olivia's features. Amanda wondered if Olivia was watching some kind of movie, a cruel reminder and trick of her brain that forced her to relive all the moments she and her brother had shared, good or bad. Olivia's lips formed a thin line when she turned to look at Amanda. Their eyes met and Amanda saw the pool of emotions just below the surface. She continued to hold Olivia's gaze, for however long their minds allowed them to.

"Growing up the way I did, I longed for the idea of a family. Sometimes I think I tried too hard, forced it too much. But when I was younger, still in school, I would see my friends with their parents and their siblings and it would hurt so much not having that. I always just wanted my life to be like theirs."

Amanda heard her own memories reflected in those words, like a voice was speaking directly from her own past, gave voice to her own demons. Growing up surrounded by the way her parents fought and her father hitting her mother and Kim being who and what she was, she had always craved the picture perfect image she saw on TV's and in her friend's homes.

Eye contact was not something Amanda favoured. It made her feel uncomfortable and exposed. Naked while still wearing all of her clothes. Allowing someone to see past the outside, the layers she had so carefully constructed, took the control away from her. But somehow with this woman, keeping eye contact felt like the easiest thing in the world. Perhaps it was because she was losing herself in the pool of Olivia's moments and it wasn't about her own layers being stripped back. But in that moment the vulnerability of both of them lay exposed.

"Liv, you can't beat yourself up over this. It's like you said, he didn't stay in touch either. Sometimes that is just what happens. People find their different paths. Life has a funny way of doing that sometimes."

"I think, sometimes, that I just tried to run away. I spent so much of my life wanting to know I wasn't alone and when I found out I had a brother, I just wanted to embrace it. But then, I wanted to let it go."

Amanda, realising her hand was still resting on Olivia's thigh, moved it and covered the older woman's hand. Her fingers were warm, she realised. She covered Olivia's hand like she would a victim and gave it a soft squeeze. Reassuring, comforting. "I grew up with two parents and a sister and I ran as hard and as fast from that as I could."

"And I didn't miss him when I didn't see him. It was as if… he was always just there, in the back of my mind. But at the same time he wasn't. He was like this figure in the shadows. But Simon is… _was_…" Olivia changed the tense of her word with a troubled expression on her face. The finality of what they meant settled in her chest, a cold feeling creeping into her heart. Her brother was gone.

She couldn't remember ever feeling lonelier before in her life than she did in that moment. Seeing his face just days ago as he almost magically appeared behind her had felt unreal. Like he had emerged from the dark shrouds of her past. Wherever he went, whenever he entered her life, trouble always followed him. There was always grief, always frustration and often sadness. But the blood they shared still made them family.

"He _was _the only family I had." Tears welled up in Olivia's eyes, found their way down her cheek faster than she could brush them away. "I am alone now."

"You are not alone. "Amanda said softly, her hand still covering Olivia's. She continued to hold the Captain's gaze. A hesitant pause followed as Amanda watched something change in Olivia's eyes and Amanda leaned in a little closer, before brushing her lips against Olivia's forehead. It was an instinctive move, one that she didn't have words or thoughts for but something that just happened. The kiss was chaste, as light as a snowflake landing and melting on your skin.

Amanda gently rested her forehead against Olivia's. She could feel the other woman's warm breath against her skin, felt Olivia's hair against her face.

"There is the family you're born into ad there is the family you choose," she breathed, the words almost getting lost between them. "And Liv, I chose you a long time ago."


End file.
